PC and Music News

Sibelius Software has released Sibelius 5, a major upgrade to their music notation software. This new version is packed with many new features, including :

- Ideas Hub, a powerful tool to capture, tag, find and bring together musical ideas
- Sibelius Sounds Essentials, a 2GB collection of sounds selected from top-name libraries by Garritan, SonicVox and Tapspace
- Full VST & Audio Units support
- Playback handled by Kontakt Player 2
- Panorama - instead of being chopped up into systems and pages, the music is shown in a single, infinitely-wide strip – far easier to read and navigate around
- Easy cues & instrument changes
- Complete and easy layout control
- Reprise, an elegant new music font which is offering a realistic simulation of hand-copying
- Over 80 plug-ins including t ...

Native Instruments is excited to announce that AUDIO 8 DJ is now available in stores worldwide. The AUDIO 8 DJ is a performance-optimized USB 2.0 audio interface specifically designed for TRAKTOR 3 and other professional DJ software.

Features :

- Professional 96 kHz, 24 Bit Audio Interface. Ultra high quality Cirrus Logic AD/DA converters
- Aluminium cased, super-robust, mobile design (slim size) specifically for DJs
- 8 hi-gain outputs (RCA)
- 8 inputs (RCA), 2 optional phono preamps with high impedance input mode
- 1 alternative microphone input with input gain control and input level meter (XLR)
- Headphone output with visual level control
- Low latency ASIO / CORE Audio / DirectSound driver.
- USB 2.0 bus powered
- MIDI I/O
- Over 20 individual channel status LEDs for i ...

Avlex Corporation is pleased to introduce the Superlux E531/BCS M/S Stereo Field Recording Microphone.

Features :

- mid-side configured microphone
- battery-powered by a single 1.5 Volt AA battery that is capable of providing upwards of 200 hours of use
- 3.5 mm stereo mini plug
- two coverage patterns at the flip of a switch: 90 degrees and 120 degrees
- frequency response of 100 Hz - 15 kHz
- On/Off switch
- microphone stand clip and foam windscreen included

The new Superlux E531/BCS M/S Stereo Field Recording Microphone carries a MSRP of $49 and is available now.

MixVibes has just released DVS Pack MKII which combines the DVS technologie (Digital Vinyl Software), which allows a real time mix feel of your digital media files on vinyl or CD decks, with their new U46MKII sound interface. This bundle is the perfect solution for Deejays who wish to scratch or beatmatch there digital files without loosing the genuine vinyl/CD feel.

Main Features :

- Scratch, Needle Drop, Master Tempo(+-100%)/ Pitch Shifting (+-24%)/ Speed (+-100%), Waveform Display, Auto BPM Counting, Seamless Loops, effects, Auto Beat Matching, Vinyl Effects
- High-Quality Vinyl Sound
- Low Latency : 3 ms with ASIO
- Real Vinyl/CD Feel
- Many audio formats supported: Wav, Mp3, Wma, Ogg Vorbis, Audio Cd

For more information, please visit their web site.

Audeon has announced the pre-release of its UFO synthesizer built upon Audeon's proprietary "TransModal Synthesis" technology. Its oscillator model is controlled by perceptual attributes such as Periodicity, Brightness, Noisiness or Chaos, etc., lying on 2D controllers. Programming a sound simply consists of balancing these attributes by placing dots on the controllers and modulating them graphically by drawing arrows, thus making sound design particularly easy and offering great expressiveness.

A preview demo version of UFO for Mac OS X in VST format is now available for download. The full version will be released shortly.

Db audioware has published the first in a series of online tutorial videos.

"Build a plug-in in 5 minutes with Quantum FX" is a mini masterclass presented by Dave Brown, founder of db audioware and a legendary creator of VST plug-ins. It covers the entire process of creating an audio plug-in, from designing the audio algorithm and GUI layout, through to using it in a standard host audio application.

The planned series of tutorial videos will deal with a variety of problems and techniques in
computer sound and music production. Future videos will address topics as diverse as side-chain compression and physical modelling.

db audioware tutorial videos are free to watch, and can be found at :